New York Central class L-4 3137 brings the Queen City from Detroit into Cincinnati Union Terminal in September 1954. The 50 L-4 engines, built by Lima 1942–44, were the final group of 4-8-2s acquired by the Central, which had more of the type — 600 — than any other road. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Private cars in town for the Kentucky Derby fill the tracks near Louisville Union Station in 1967. Charles B. Castner photo […]
Central Railroad of New Jersey 4-6-0 155 — one of CNJ’s many center-cab “Camelback” engines — takes water on the fly from the track pans at Dunellen, N.J., in late 1931. R. P. Morris photo […]
New York Central J-1 4-6-4 5249 eases off the turntable at Harmon, N.Y., the point 33 miles up the Hudson River from Grand Central Terminal where for decades NYC exchanged steam for electric locomotives. Ed Nowak photo […]
Southern Railway 2-8-8-2 4021, running boards and driving wheels trimmed in white, looks sharp at Appalachia, Va., on the afternoon of May 27, 1952. But a close look reveals that her main rods have been taken down in preparation for being hauled away for scrap. Ed Theisinger photo […]
St. Louis-San Francisco passenger trains are part of Classic Trains‘ editors’ celebration of the Frisco all through May 2022. Please enjoy this photo gallery of Frisco passenger trains selected from Kalmbach Media‘s David P. Morgan Library. Since October 2019, Classic Trains’ editors have celebrated a different Fallen Flag, that is, a Class I railroad that […]
Union Pacific Challenger: Railroad slogans are one of the industry’s lost arts. The old ad men and promoters who came up with them were geniuses. Remember when phrases like Water Level Route or Main Line of Mid-America told you so much about a particular railroad? The best ones spoke of far-flung places, and how to […]
Erie Lackawanna’s hottest freight trains, eastbound NE-74 (left, powered by SD45s) and westbound CX-99, meet on former Erie trackage beside the Delaware River at Rood’s Creek, N.Y., in the early 1970s. J. J. Young Jr. photo […]
Diesels with trolley poles: Interurban railways usually had some form of freight traffic supplementing their passenger business, but almost none could come close to the Pacific Electric Railway, Southern California’s premier streetcar system. A subsidiary of Southern Pacific, even after the company gave up hauling passengers, freight service continued at a brisk pace up to […]
EMD DDA40X: In 1968, Union Pacific purchased 50 20-cylinder, 3,600 hp EMD SD45s for high-speed service. However, the units did not meet management’s expectations in that role. So, UP commissioned EMD to design and build a locomotive that would develop more horsepower than the DD35, U50, or C855 models. The result was the largest double-diesel […]
A long string of Pacific Fruit Express reefers is being loaded with mail at right as workers sort mail bags at the Union Pacific Transfer in Council Bluffs, Iowa, during the 1951 Christmas rush. At busy times like this, all available equipment was pressed into mail service. Union Pacific Museum photo […]
Between the years 1976 and 1999, Conrail business trains operated for three purposes: to enable railroad executives to travel the right-of-way for close track inspection, to look at rail facilities, and to entertain customers over Conrail lines to improve business potential and customer service. This nearly all-color, very well done 416-page, four-pound volume covers the […]
